Events archive

India has historically performed badly in the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators and a key objective of the current Indian government is about improving de jure rules around investment decisions... Read more

The paper examines the roles of three influential heads of the British High Commission in Pakistan’s early post-independence history, Sir Gilbert Laithwaite (1951-4), Sir Alexander Symon (1954-61)... Read more

Jonathan Spencer is Regius Professor of South Asian Language, Culture and Society at the University of Edinburgh. He has carried out research in Sri Lanka since the early 1980s. His most recent book... Read more

Drawing from Marxian and feminist insights, this presentation, based on a recently completed book, theorizes the garment sweatshop in India as a complex 'regime' of exploitation and oppression,... Read more

This paper (joint work with Shalaka Thakur) examines the parallel governance system that has emerged under the protracted ceasefire between the Indian government and the separatist National Socialist... Read more

Can the world be thought of in terms of sepia and light? This talk will explore the relationship between archaic labour and photography in colonial Ceylon with an emphasis on pearlescence and how... Read more

Vijay Joshi is Emeritus Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. His main areas of interest are Macroeconomics, International Economics and Development Economics, and he has published widely in these fields... Read more

As the Portuguese’s entry opened up a turbulent time in the Indian Ocean, Muslim scribal elites across the region presented them within the image of idolatrous infidels. Writing in Arabic, the... Read more

Exploring the emotional terrain of the citizenship experiences of groups in Goa this paper will argue that through the linguistic choices made by the government of Goa it is not merely caste that is... Read more

The transition to colonialism in South Asian history has been a vibrant and hotly contested part of India’s history. The role of scribes as historical actors of change in India’s history has only... Read more

Histories of the British empire in India often present it as a stable and effective form of state power and a coherent ideology. Drawing on the argument of his recent book, India Conquered. Britain’s... Read more

Following the 1971 Bangladesh War, the Bangladesh government publicly designated the thousands of women raped by the then West Pakistani (later Pakistani) military and their local East Pakistani (... Read more

Tim Harper 's research interests centre on the history of modern Southeast Asia and the region's global connections. His first book, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (1999), was a study of... Read more

Gandhi’s lauded text Hind Swaraj is born of and located within the 19th century crisis of liberal democracy and its resolutions of an intimate animosity towards the masses. Gandhi shares considerable... Read more